


The Wandslinger in Black

by Toodleoo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, F/M, Western
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:13:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8126479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toodleoo/pseuds/Toodleoo
Summary: Tom Riddle and his posse have been devastating Pima County with train heists and bank robberies, keeping all the townsfolk of Hogsville on edge. When an important man is assassinated at wandpoint, will saloon keeper Rosmerta be able to figure out who's on the side of good and who's dancing the two-step with the Devil?





	

**Author's Note:**

> One piece of research that never made it into this story was Big Nose George, A.K.A. George Parrott, a highwayman and cattle rustler from the Wild West. One bit that did make it in? There's an outlaw named George Curry who went by the name "Flatnose" Curry. It seemed appropriate.

****  
The clip-clop of hoofbeats echoed down the streets of Hogsville, stirring Rosmerta to wakefulness before the sun began its ascent.  
  
_A lone rider,_ she thought, eyes still closed as she contemplated waking fully and preparing for the day. _Nobody ever goes out this early in the morning._ She wiped her eyes. What time was it, anyway?  
  
Deciding to see just who had disturbed her slumber, Rosmerta pulled her wand out from under her pillow, using it to move the curtain aside to get a glimpse of the man on his horse. From where she lay, she couldn't make out much more than his silhouette. It was still dark out, an indigo haze of dawn, and the details were lost to the shadows. All she could make out was his lean body, confident as he rode.  
  
She'd never seen his like before.  
  
As he turned down the next street and the sounds died away, she collapsed back onto her bed. Whoever the stranger was, he wasn't from around here. Rosmerta knew every cowboy, lawman, and outlaw from Tombstone to Tuscon, and she'd never laid eyes on this fellow before. He was new, all right. Perhaps he'd come into her saloon for a pint later. She yawned, pulled her quilt up over her head, and fell soundly asleep.

 

*

  
She awoke again a few hours late when the sound of splintering wood and broken glass downstairs roused her. _Another brawl between the silver miners and the cowboys_ , she thought. It wasn't even noon. Throwing a dress on over her shift, Rosmerta tucked her illicit wand down her cleavage, just in case.  
  
It was just another morning in Hogsville, after all. Probably nothing to be worried about, but Rosmerta had seen enough to know that she needed to keep her wits about her at all times.  
  
Pima County was on the edge of civilization just as much as it was on the edge of the Sonoran Desert. Deputy U.S. Marshall Harold Potter watched over Hogsville itself, but even _he_ couldn't stop the thieving of the outlaw Thomas "Flatnose" Riddle and his gang of Death Riders. Potter had more reason than most to despise Riddle. The man had killed both his ma and pa at wandpoint years earlier, and the lawman made no secret of his thirst for vengeance and justice.  
  
In Philadelphia or New York City, where folks were genteel and refined, _proper_ ladies never carried wands. Why, it was simply unthinkable. Some women in the West carried dainty ladies' wands, but they were mostly for show, and even _that_ was rare.  
  
Rosie was no lady. Her wand-- _full-sized_ , mind--had saved her hide on multiple occasions. When a drunken cowboy started getting fresh, Rosmerta waited until he wasn't looking before cursing his bollocks. When rail baron Lucius Malfoy accepted a building contract that devastated the local banks, Rosmerta reestablished economic equilibrium with one well-placed Confundus Charm.  
  
No, nobody in town needed to know that she carried a wand.  
  
And they never would.  
  
Not unless it was _absolutely_ necessary.  
  
With that wand wedged betwixt her ample bosoms, Rosmerta stormed out of her room to the balcony overlooking the Three Broomsticks Saloon. Sure enough, her suspicions proved correct. Those fool cowboys just couldn't keep well enough alone, and had already broken a few chairs and some bottles in their argument with the local miners.  
  
She whistled with her fingers between her lips, a loud, shrill, piercing sound that stopped all in their tracks. A half dozen or so men all stopped what they were doing and looked up at her.  
  
'Are you boys finished destroying my bar?' she asked, putting on sweet airs as she sashayed down the staircase.  
  
They all had the decency to look ashamed of themselves, and more than one man pulled out a wand to set things right again. Bottles stitched themselves together and flew back onto the shelves, wooden shards knitted themselves into a chair, and the glass from the window melted back into its original form.  
  
'Sorry, ma'am.'  
  
'Won't happen again, Madam Rosmerta.'  
  
She grabbed a cotton cloth from behind the bar, dipped it in cold water, and walked over to a man with a nasty gash above his eye. 'There, there,' she said, her voice more tender than it ought to be, considering he'd been a part of the mob tearing up her saloon. 'We'll clean you right up, Mister Braddock.' She wiped the excess blood and spoke to the room. 'Any of you boys know any healing spells?'  
  
After a great deal of hemming and hawing, it seemed that Rosie was going to have to deal with this without their help. A closer look at the wound revealed that it was much deeper than it first appeared. She was ill-equipped to deal with it herself, but there was someone in town who knew about such things.  
  
'Go to the apothecary,' Rosmerta told Mister Finnegan. 'Fetch Mister Snape, if you please, and ask him to bring his needles.' This wound looked like it might need stitching up for the blood to stop.  
  
'Yes, ma'am,' Finnegan repilied. He ran out, flying past the swinging doors that kept only some of the dust outside. While he was gone, Rosmerta had a few of the remaining men lay the patient out on a long table beside the far wall, away from the crowd. Most of those idiots had already gone back to their vittles and their drink, attended to by the trusty barman Tom.  
  
'Who's going to tell me what you were fighting over?' she asked, directing the question to nobody in particular.  
  
Some quiet grumbling echoed throughout the saloon.  
  
'Well?' she asked again.  
  
Finally, one of the men spoke up. 'Braddock reckons he saw one of Riddle's men down in the mine, but Byrne refused to believe him.'  
  
'Why would one of them Death Riders be in our mine?' Byrne cried, stepping up to fight anyone who challenged him. 'That's foolish talkin' and it makes no sense! We ain't gone anything they'd want there.'  
  
'I'm tellin' you,' Braddock said, clutching the bar towel to his eye, 'I seen what I seen. It was a man all dressed in black, and he was pawin' around in our territory.'  
  
Byrne snorted. 'If you think _you_ scared off a Death Rider, you got another thing comin', you lilly-livered bastard."  
  
They almost erupted into another argument, but just then, Mister Snape strode into the saloon with Finnegan on his heels.  
  
Rosmerta waved him over.  
  
He was an ornery sort, skinny and pale and homely, but he was the most learned man in town. Some said he'd been a schoolteacher somewhere up north, and others said that he'd been a doc on the battlefield in the war. Whatever he _had_ been, Rosmerta just appreciated the fact that he made eye contact with her when they conversed, rather than staring at her chest. He was a rude, antisocial arse, but he was gentlemanly.  
  
'Madame Rosmerta,' he said, acknowledging her with a nod of his head. 'You are looking well.'  
  
She blushed, knowing she was still slightly underdressed for public appearances. Of course, Snape never treated her like a piece of totty, so he might not have noticed that she wasn't wearing proper bloomers or that her corset hadn't been done up completely before she'd run down the stairs. 'Mister Snape. Thank you for coming so quick-like.'  
  
He dropped his bag on an empty chair and leaned in to take a closer look. 'What were these fools doing that caused a cut this clean?' he asked.  
  
'It's from a glass shard, if I read it correct,' she said, 'but I can't get it to clot. There were busted bottles aplenty when I came down the stairs.'  
  
'I see,' he said, pulling a glass jar and a cotton cloth from his bag. When he unscrewed the lid, an unpleasant aroma flooded the room--something akin to a dead armadillo rotting in a barrel of moonshine. A dab of the cotton into the jar, and Snape pressed it to Braddock's injury. When he flinched, Snape muttered under his breath, 'It wouldn't hurt if you could refrain from getting yourself into scrapes like this one.'  
  
Rosmerta shook her head. 'What I wouldn't give to see a little restraint from these men!'  
  
'Hold him down,' Snape ordered Finnegan. The young man did as he said, grasping arms and pinning them down. Then Snape turned to his patient. 'Brace yourself, Braddock. This will likely... _sting_.'  
  
The scream of the fellow when the needle first went in caught everyone's attention in the saloon.  
  
'Consarn it, Snape!' he cried. He blinked away tears, determined not to cry.  
  
'Oh, _my_ ,' he replied, his voice dripping with false sympathy, 'did that _hurt_?' Snape tutted at him. 'Well, I suppose you'll have to behave a tad less like a Neanderthal when you're in public houses, won't you?'  
  
Rosmerta smiled.  
  
'Would you have preferred that I use a healing spell?' he asked, smirking at the whimpering man.  
  
'You could have used a _spell_ for this?' he spat, waggling his finger in Snape's face. 'How come you didn't say so afore you poked me up like a porcupine?'  
  
Snape smiled then, a grim sort of bending of his thin lips, and his demeanor was cool and detatched. 'You never asked.'  
  
And without so much as a bye your leave, the dark-haired apothecarist threw everything back in his bag and strode to the door.  
  
Despite herself, Rosmerta liked the taciturn man. She couldn't quite make heads of tails of him. He didn't seem to have any friends in town other than Miss McGonagall, the spinsterly school marm, and perhaps Lucius Malfoy, who allowed Snape free transport on any of his trains. He seemed to use that transport, since days or weeks would go by when Rosmerta heard neither hide nor hair of the man. Then again, Snape certainly wasn't friendly or chatty, and he seemed to despise most of the others in town. Her he treated with something akin to kindness, and Rosmerta appreciated it. When the miners got a little rough, he often came to quiet them down.  
  
Before Snape pushed his way through the swinging doors, he turned back to Rosmerta, nodded to her, and swept out into the street.

 


End file.
